Are you looking best camera, this is your Canon

The Bad Relatively large compared to other cameras in its class and its photos aren't as sharp as competitors'.

The Bottom LineFor a step up in photo quality or performance from a phone or compact, the Canon EOS Rebel T7i/800D remains a fan favorite.

usually steer people toward last-generation (or more) models for the best value on a budget, and that's especially true with Canon's entry-level dSLRs, the Rebel series in the US. Canon tends to trickle down technology from older, higher-end models whose prices have dropped, and it just makes sense to buy those better models instead of the new one with the ancient insides.

But the Rebel T7i (called the 800D in the UK and Australia) represents Canon's first truly significant update to the series, really since the T2i in 2010. The T6i got a new-to-it sensor and autofocus system in 2015, but that was a transitional change. But somehow, Canon manages to make this big change feel incremental: It delivers roughly the same photo quality as before and shoots a little bit faster once you discount how fast the lens drives. It still doesn't really match the Nikon D5600 for photo quality or continuous-shooting speed, though it still has the lead for video autofocus.

The camera costs $850 with the 18-55mm f4-5.6 STM lens (£895, AU$1,400) though regionally other kits are available.

Old faithful

The T7i's body remains the same as its predecessor's, but it finally incorporates Canon's Dual Pixel CMOS sensor, a 3-year-old technology with on-chip phase-detection autofocus that's in almost all Canon's other interchangeable-lens camera lines. But it's a current sensor and metering system, the same ones that are in the EOS 80D, but with an even newer image-processing engine (Digic 7).

Canon still uses an antialiasing filter, which blurs edges slightly, on its sensors; Nikon does not. So Nikon's shots look tons sharper than Canon's. And Canon's automatic white balance isn't as smart in cloudy conditions (or situations where the light color is similar).